The officers accused in the federal complaint are Anthony Bynum, 29, Price Montgomery, 38, Shawn Williams, 33, and Craig Clayton, 55. Bynum and Montgomery are officers with the Highland Park police. Authorities say Bynum also is a reserve officer with the Detroit Public Schools, and Williams and Clayton both are auxiliary officers in the Detroit enclave.

The complaint charges the men with accepting cash bribes and conspiring to deliver 6 kilograms of cocaine. Each man faces up to 40 years in prison on the cocaine charge, up to 10 years on the bribery charges and additional time for other counts.

U.S. attorney’s office spokeswoman Gina Balaya said the men have requested court-appointed attorneys.

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Authorities say the investigation started last August, when Bynum and Montgomery arrested a man on a firearms offense and beat him. They accepted an offer of $10,000 from the man, who became an undercover informant for FBI, in exchange for failing to appear at the man’s trial in Wayne County Circuit Court, officials said.

The men also are accused of transporting and delivering what they believed to be 2 kilograms of cocaine that was actually fake for the FBI source they believed to be a drug trafficker. Authorities say they later recruited Williams and Clayton to help deliver a larger shipment of what they believed to be cocaine.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said Highland Park Police Chief Kevin Coney initiated a federal investigation into the alleged misconduct. She and Coney said the accusations are limited to the four officers.